


What A Shame (That You Came Here With Someone)

by maydei



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkward Sam, College, Feminist Ruby, First Dates, Graduate School, Holiday Fic Exchange, M/M, Misunderstandings, Sam and Ruby are Besties, past Sam/Jess - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maydei/pseuds/maydei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First dates are supposed to be perfect, right? Unfortunately, this wasn't what Sam had in mind.</p><p>For the FYSL Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What A Shame (That You Came Here With Someone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the-yaoi-galla](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the-yaoi-galla).



> **For:** FYSL Exchange  
>  **Prompter:** the-yaoi-galla
> 
>  **Prompt:** College AU: Sam drags Lucifer drinking with him and the guys. 
> 
> ~~I will not apologize for the Ke$ha reference in the title.~~ I kind of took some liberties and it ran away from me. If it seems a little rushed, I did end up having surgery last week, so I'm sorry if it's not as complete-feeling as I usually go for. But then again, there's always the potential for more! I hope this is acceptable!

Ruby thought he was crazy, of course. He’d just finished his last final, and now he was going to the campus library? It was insanity.

But he was pre-law, he told her, and finals being over didn’t mean he got to slack off now. Unfortunately, convincing Ruby of that was easier said than done.

Which was how Sam found his eyes covered at 5 o’clock sharp, Ruby crooning into his ear a flirty _guess who, prissy pants?_

“Ruby,” Sam groaned, swatting her hands away, “I thought I said I had reading to do.” Sam shot a glance up, always wary of making a scene—but there was no one in Sam’s section but one other student, buried behind a book. Blue eyes glanced over the cover—Lucifer shot Sam a look that was less than impressed.

Sam offered a sheepish wave. Lucifer was a grad student in Theology, a department Sam hadn’t even been aware Stanford _had_ until he’d unfortunately crashed Lucifer’s cram-session one night by tripping over his own (enormous) feet and knocking over his table full of carefully-sorted midterm research.

And, well, Sam was pretty sure he’d never gotten his pride (or his balls) back from the bitching-out he’d gotten. Even weeks later, he was always careful to tiptoe around Lucifer’s belongings and general person. The fact that they could now sit in the same area in mutual silence was an improvement.

An improvement that would _not_ be helped by Ruby disrupting the quiet understanding in their section of the library.

“It’s five, Sambo,” Ruby said, drumming her perfectly-manicured nails on his shoulders, dark hair falling to brush Sam’s cheek. “And I’ve made the executive decision that we’re going out. You’ve been a mess since you and Jess split, and I’m not letting you commit social suicide in the library when everyone else is either going out or going home.”

Sam winced at the mention of Jess—the two had split up not long after midterms (coincidentally, the night Sam’s gigantic self had fallen all over the library) when Sam snapped at her in his stress. It had been a long time in coming. He and Jess had been comfortable. Too comfortable. Comfortable to the point where they started fighting, but never really had the time and the spark to make it up to each other. Jess was happier now, he thought, with her new boyfriend—some gangly guy named Garth who knew she was eons out of his league and treated her like she hung the moon.

He was happy for them. Whether or not he was happy, himself, was another story.

Sam lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m busy.”

“You’re hiding,” Ruby replied. She rested her chin on top of his head, then reached out to grab for his book. Sam flushed; her arms were effectively around him.

Lucifer coughed once, pointedly. When Sam looked up, his scowl was even deeper than usual, etched into his face like stone, directed at whatever words he was mulling over in his book.

Sam didn’t know why it made him feel immature.

“Ruby, stop,” Sam hissed.

She looked up, following his gaze. Sam turned to look at her, wide-eyed, just in time to see the smile stretch across her lips.

“Well, well,” she whispered obligingly. “Does my Sammy have a crush on the big, bad grad?”

Sam slammed his book shut, narrowly missing her fingers, and sat up straight. He looked down at the table as he arranged his books into a careful pile. “Stop it.”

“Sam, I’m insulted. You know me better than that.” Ruby ruffled his hair, then sank into the chair opposite Sam, effectively blocking his view of Lucifer. Sam rubbed a hand over his face, embarrassed and exasperated. “Tell ya what. You come out with me and the boys, and I’ll lay off. As long as you invite Grumpy Gus, over there.”

Sam wasn’t sure if he went beet red or bone white. “Ruby, he’d never accept.”

“Of course he will,” she replied, looking smug. “He’s been itching to wring my neck since I put my hands on you.”

“No!” Sam protested urgently.

“Yes!” Ruby replied. “You’re in desperate need of a good lay. He looks like he could fuck you within an inch of your life. And he even looks like he _wants_ to. You invite him, and I won’t try to set you up with anyone at the bar tonight. And I’ll make sure Crowley keeps his hands to himself.”

Sam shuddered. “You swear?”

“On your 4.0,” Ruby replied solemnly. “Just invite him. If I’m wrong, deal’s still on. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Except study time.”

Ruby waved her hand, dismissive. “You don’t need it, anyway. Just come out with us, drink with us, have fun with us. You can go back to being a hermit over the break. There won’t be anyone on campus; you’ll basically be alone. I won’t be around to bother you. Not until Christmas, when I drag you home with me and Meg to eat crappy food. Okay?”

Sam pushed his chair back from his table a few inches in response.

Ruby smiled, stood and brushed herself off, and cocked her hips. “Great. See ya tonight, Sambo. We’re meeting at seven at Azazel’s.”

Sam sank into his seat as she sauntered away. He wasn’t even sure how his friendship with Ruby had started, only that it had been causing more and more things in his life to end up unexpectedly going her way.

Like this.

Sam couldn’t deny that he’d been thinking about asking Lucifer out for a while, but dragging the man along while his friends drank themselves into a stupor wasn’t exactly Sam’s idea of a first date. He’d pictured something a little more... low-key. Bringing him coffee, for a start. Lucifer was almost always attached to a coffee cup, and usually some sort of sweet pastry from the campus Starbucks.

He just... didn’t want to seem more juvenile than he already did. Asking a guy out to a bar wasn’t exactly the first impression Sam wanted to make.

Lucifer was just so _polished._ Thought-out. Deliberate. Though more often than not he tended to dress in faded jeans and layered shirts, his bag and books were immaculate, and the glasses he wore on those longer nights didn’t have a scratch.

And then there was Sam, sloppy pre-law in his hoodies and sweatpants and his used books with the covers half torn away. He had high ambitions, sure, but ever since he left home, he couldn’t really _afford..._

Out of his league didn’t even begin to _cover_ Lucifer.

Sam took a breath. And then another to calm his nerves. He slid his books into his tattered backpack and stood up. He stopped in front of Lucifer, fidgeting as he waited for the grad to look up from his book. He adjusted his bag on his shoulder. When Sam realized he was being effectively ignored, he almost lost his nerve—

“Hi,” Sam said.

Lucifer looked up, decidedly unimpressed but altogether unsurprised. “Hello, Sam.”

“Oh—you know my name,” Sam blurted, then promptly flushed. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Lucifer, for his part, looked more amused at that than annoyed. He even shut his text; some translated rendition of the Bible from the time of the Roman Empire. “Yes, Sam, I know your name. You told me when you knocked over my table in November. Kind of hard to forget.”

Sam ducked his head, mortified. He had half a mind to just abandon ship right now—

“Is there something I can help you with?”

Lucifer, for all that he seemed unfriendly at first, seemed perfectly willing to talk to Sam now that he knew Sam was alone. He wondered if maybe Ruby was right about Lucifer being interested (but then again, Ruby was almost always right about those things).

“I was wondering...” Sam started, then paused. He hesitated.

“Yes?” Lucifer leaned forward.

Sam swallowed hard. “Um, my friends are going out tonight—to celebrate finals being over and all. And they’re expecting me to show up, and I was just wondering... if you’d like to come with us. Er, me? If you’d like to come with me. As a thing.”

Lucifer frowned a bit. “As a thing.”

Sam cursed himself. “As a _date_ ,” he amended. “With me. Please?”

Lucifer leaned back, head tilted slightly, eyes sharp. “And your girlfriend, she put you up to this.”

Sam’s mouth dropped open; he balked. “What, _Ruby?_ She’s not—we’re not—she suggested I ask, but if that was a mistake—”

He trailed off into silence. Lucifer rubbed at his mouth with his knuckles. Sam had a hard time tearing his eyes away when Lucifer spoke.

“Where?” He asked. “And what time?”

“Huh?”

Lucifer sighed, exasperated. “If I were to meet you there, Sam, at this place. Where is it and what time?”

“Oh! Azazel’s place, you know the little one over—yeah, okay,” Sam said when Lucifer narrowed his eyes slightly. “At seven.”

Lucifer opened his book again and continued to read. “I’ll think about it.”

It was a dismissal. Sam didn’t exactly expect a glowing acceptance, but he was more than a little let down.

He shrank a little. “Okay. I...”

Lucifer gave him a cool look.

Sam flushed. “...I hope to see you there? Or I just. I hope you show up. Okay.”

And he fled.

 

* * *

 

 

Eight-fifteen rolled around. There was no sign of Lucifer.

Sam wished he was more surprised, but Ruby was apparently surprised enough for the both of them. She set another in a long line of shots down in front of him and gave his back a consoling pat—Benny, Brady, and Meg had already offered their own apologies before paying attention to the game and making their way down the bar to pester their classmates and Azazel, the owner of the tiny hole-in-the-wall and their advisor for all things that sucked and needed beer to wash down the taste.

This sucked.

Ruby sat down beside him as Sam knocked back the shot. Tequila, yikes. He swallowed it anyway. This was, what? Five? Seven? Didn’t matter.

Lucifer hadn’t shown up.

“I’m sorry, Sambo,” Ruby said. “I thought for sure—”

“Whatever,” Sam replied miserably. He rested his elbow on the bar, then his chin in his hand, and stared morosely at the screen where two college teams were thoroughly thrashing each other. “I just liked him. A lot.”

She leaned over to put her arm around him. “Oh, honey, I know. I’m sorry.”

And then—

The bell over the door rang, and Sam and Ruby looked over in tandem as they had been doing all night. Except, finally, it was who they’d been waiting for.

Lucifer looked pissed and exasperated as a second man followed him in.

Sam felt his heart land with a solid _thump_ in his stomach. So, what? He had a boyfriend already and just _brought_ him instead of turning Sam down? Sam could hear Ruby snarl beside him, apparently thinking much the same.

He turned his face away and caught Azazel’s eye, motioning for another.

This was gonna be a long night.

And then he felt Ruby’s presence beside him slip away.

He groaned, looked back at Azazel, and motioned for two.

 

* * *

 

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” A surprisingly angry female voice snapped.

Lucifer looked up to see the girl— _Ruby_ —storming toward him.

He felt his anger build. Great. First Gabriel and now this? He didn’t have _time._ He was already late. “Where’s Sam?”

“Don’t you _where’s Sam_ me!” she hissed, dark curls bobbing with the angry jerk of her head. “You show up here an _hour_ late with _another guy_ and you expect me to let you go _show off_ your boyfriend to that poor kid? You leave him alone! He doesn’t deserve your crap!”

Lucifer scowled. She didn’t make _any_ sort of sense and he _really_ didn’t have the time for this.

“I’ll find him myself,” he muttered, dodging away from the heat at his back and around Ruby—

His brother whistled behind him. “Damn, bro, you’re missin’ out on some prime real estate if you’re passing up this girl.”

Ruby, apparently, heard him, and zoomed in on Gabriel like a homing missile with a vengeance. Served him right, Lucifer figured.

“Excuse me?” Ruby demanded furiously. “What did you say about me?”

“Only that you’re one hell of a lady,” Gabriel replied, probably grinning that smarmy little-brother grin at her.

Lucifer wanted to retch. Apparently, so did Ruby.

“What the hell kind of scumbag are you? What, your boyfriend doesn’t get your rocks off at night, so you hit on everything that breathes when you walk over a threshold?”

Lucifer winced at the retching noise Gabriel made at the insinuation—but that, at least, cleared up some of the confusion. He’d be more angry if it didn’t occur to him now that Ruby was only looking out for Sam’s best interests.

“Boyfriend? _Boyfriend?!_ You honestly think I’d _date_ that sonofabitch, even if he _wasn’t_ my big brother? Lady, I’ll give you this, you’re cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but you ain’t half smart if you think I’d touch my brother’s lady lumps with a ten foot pole.”

“ _Brother?_ ”

Lucifer escaped into the bar, not envying the girl her conversation with Gabriel—but they probably deserved each other. Maybe if he was lucky, they’d keep each other occupied for long enough for him to talk to Sam.

And... _there._

He slid into the stool beside Sam and swiped one of the two shots waiting in front of him—he hated that Gabriel had made him late, but he had to admit he was just a little unsettled at the idea of a _date_. Hopefully Sam would understand his reasons for not being on time. Hopefully Sam wasn’t smashed beyond all reason.

 

* * *

 

 

Someone stole his shot. Sam was fully prepared to accept that it was Ruby, except that, well, it _wasn’t_ Ruby.

It was Lucifer.

Sam wanted to throw up, and he was hardly even drunk yet. If it weren’t for his pity-party, he’d hardly even be tipsy. But then there was _Lucifer_ stealing his _shot_ and—

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Lucifer said. “My _brother_ made himself a thorn in my side. I didn’t mean for you to think I’d stood you up. I’d never do that to you, Sam.”

Emphasis on the brother. Oh. _Oh._

“Brother?” Sam asked, turning to face him, which was so much easier now that Sam knew that Lucifer _wanted_ to be there. With him.

“Little brother,” Lucifer replied with the smallest upward twist of his lips. “Gabriel. We share an apartment with our older brother, Michael.”

“Religious family?” Sam asked, only barely stumbling over the words.

“You have no idea,” Lucifer answered, that tiny smirk blooming into something like a grin. “I hope you’re not mad.”

“Just thought you weren’t coming,” Sam admitted honestly. He spin his shot glass between his fingers. “I _was_ a little bummed.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Lucifer said, and it sounded like a promise. He reached over, fingers brushing Sam’s wrist. Sam shivered; Lucifer’s fingers were cold, but the touch was pleasant against his alcohol-fevered skin.

“Where’s Ruby?” Sam asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“When I left, she was calling him a scumbag.”

“Sounds like Ruby,” Sam agreed.

“He called her a piece of real-estate,” Lucifer added.

Sam winced. “That’ll get him seven semesters worth of an education on feminism and how he’s propagating the patriarchy by reducing her pride in her aesthetic for her own sake down to her being vain or something to be owned.”

“And she’ll be right. Just because we never had any sisters doesn’t mean Gabriel doesn’t need to learn to respect women if he ever wants to build a relationship with one.”

Sam could’ve kissed him.

“Feminist Lucifer. Who would’ve thought?” Sam said, hiding his smile behind his hand.

“My cousin Anna is considered quite the hellion in our conservative family. I always made a point of helping her with her schemes. They got her into Sarah Lawrence in New York. I was proud.”

Sam grinned. Who would’ve thought?

“I should sober up a little. This isn’t usually my thing,” Sam admitted. “Wanna go for a walk?”

Lucifer nodded, seeming pleased. He waited as Sam paid his tab (considerably little, since Ruby had bought Sam an almost alarming number of pity-shots), then met him shoulder-to-shoulder as they hit the sidewalk, the night air doing wonders for Sam’s sobriety and their conversation.

It wasn’t the first date Sam’d had in mind, but there was always the chance for a second.

 

 

 

 


End file.
